But coming our panelists are ready. So I get me some Are you going to so so I want
to the city I'm going to that's planning department. I am confident Elaine
invariably is my other taller half. And we do
a lot of policy. Early implement
looking over application for people who are wanting to open up.
And
interact with can I get a job if I have a green card at
a medical marijuana so there's. In terms of their daily
lives that I think are really important. Relating marijuana.
It was
a very short timeline and I hope that the city devotes more funds to doing additional
outreach Please fill out the card so that we know
a little bit more how to further refine these kinds of outreach event outreach
events like what do you want. To see in the future please let us know. Yeah so
that's
a little bit about the process for getting this we have some amazing panelists and
I'll let our phenomenal moderator to take it away thank you so much got to give it
up for her she did incredible job and. It's so cool
that we get to be here today can you guys hear me awesome I see some head nod
really good perfect My name is deny the emotion and today I'm your moderator. A
little bit about me how I got here to this table of this diocese in this room I
started in Grand Rapids I'm a local I live like 2 blocks that way and I'm
a political consultant here in going up it's ran a lot of campaigns helped
a lot of people get elected founded a PAC had
a radio show where I was talking to specifically people of color about what was
happening politically in greater Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan when
a friend reach out to me about my consulting firm working with the cannabis company
and from there I started doing
a bunch of grassroots engagement around what people's fears were about
a cannabis company or medical marijuana taking root in their neighborhood. And then
I got more involved in cannabis started attending the Michigan Cannabis Industry
Association of events getting involved when I realized that there was this blaring
lack of diversity and I'm from Been harbors have seen
a lot of different types of people before I moved to Grand Rapids and so some
friends and I came together and said we need to start
a black and brown cannabis killed and we did just that so today as I sit here I sit
here with some incredible panelists I'm going to have introduce themselves as well
with the hopes of having
a real robust conversation around how do we get to this point for those of you who
are just now tuning in right as I say on my show so people are just now looking up
in there like well medical marijuana is here recreational is coming down the
pipeline what is this me how do we adjust how do we grow Who are we co-opting into
the opportunity in this industry what are some of our fears and what does this look
like as we all evolve this industry so today we're going to have that conversation
and I'm so excited to get to be your moderator I want to let you know that if you
have a question we are live streaming this and as a social media junkie and
a millennia digital native I am watching the live stream because I'm
a dork like that if you have questions feel free to put those in the comments and
afterwards you see 2 mikes here we're going to invite you guys to come down and do
some Q.
And A with us as well so feel free to jot your questions down if you have them the
see some of the folks not only got questions already and we may touch on them but
at the end we're going to have you guys come down and ask us questions as well
sound that I see more not perfect so with no further ado I would like to start by
having all of our panelists take
a moment and introduce yourselves tole quickly the audience what your story is and
how you got in this room into this table today and if you guys don't mind we're
going to start going left to right my left to right starting with you and it. Has
led to Berkeley city planner here in Grand Rapids and with an elevator the other
have
a team we have so we basically my job changed dramatically about last May when
we were told by this. The commission Yes go ahead and develop another one ordinance
for medical marijuana and so we developed an ordinance very quickly and it went
through the process very very quickly and since then we've been minister in this
ordinance so so my job particular pertains to look asian of the cities and how
those facilities get opened or at least go to the public process really focus on
the sort of zoning aspects and the facility aspects not quite as much the the
personal aspect of things but although that is front and center in our lives turns
Thank you Bruce Block welcome everybody I'm
a trial attorney here in Grand Rapids and I've also been very involved in
a Medical Marijuana Act since 2008. Been doing
a lot of public 27 years I have handled
a lot of medical marijuana defense of this before there was
a recreational course of the 4 there was the facilities Licensing Act and we have
Medical Marijuana Act and. Very familiar on that I've done
a lot of defense and worked with people to try to get them legal under that if
that's even possible and now of course with the facilities Licensing Act and
recreational aspect of marijuana I bring the legal I guess side of
things to the panel. Happy to answer questions and hopefully we'll have some good
ones from the moderator here as well so welcome all. Hello my name is Simone case
I am
a financial advisor to ancillary companies in the cannabis space one is an insurance
company and sure is Agency and I also have
a partner stay and I'm sure it's company in addition to that we have
a financial consulting company and all of them are Senator around cannabis in
addition to that I'm in the planning commissioner Muskegon hikes so I actually get
a chance to approve many of the licenses
a muscle the president of minorities for medical marijuana Michigan State the
chairwoman for in Double A C.P.
Focusing on health and wealth in cannabis and advocate for social equity for black
and brown people in the green rush. Good morning my name is
Richard Jones I'm with disability advocates of can county if you looked at my bio
you would see that I had been retired for
a number of years enjoying retirement and then
a strange thing happened my wife retired also. And yeah.
She decided there were none of this needed to go back to work so. Here I am I was
fortunate enough to get
a connection with disability advocates I have worked in some sort of social work
field for over 50 years. My job really is to make sure that
the disability community has
a voice that we're included in when I say we include myself in that
most of my hearing is gone so looking strangely at you it's because I'm trying to
hear what you're saying. And so it minutely my area of expertise is somewhat
limited but on the other hand I think inclusion is something that all of us need to
be mindful of and hopefully this will be
a productive morning thank you. X.
So I thank you off for that So to start we're going to all get caught up together
right where we're all going to catch up to where we are today so we can briefly
maybe land and we can start with you guys because I know this is more of
a legal process question how do we get here right the process of legal I think
probably why medical marijuana away. How did we get here today to the point where
we have legalized something something. Quite go where those processes that took
place in the state of Michigan and here that led to today where we find Earth me
with it.
So sorry that was one of my notes I just got that. You are going to call it
a bag. OK thank you so much I like her be like her if you have ever present Fabio
just tell me I spent
a lot of time on this some of the give you what I call the nut shell essentially
back in. During in 2000 and. And 8. You had the war
on drugs it was going pretty strong and there was
a lot of people in the state that wanted to. Get marrow they wanted to get
marijuana at least
a foothold they wanted there to be medical So they went and collected ballot
signatures and eventually the voters overwhelmingly passed the Medical Marijuana
Act of 2008 the way that was set up was crazy it was never intended to be
a permanent fix this was the time when the federal government which you know I
think we would all be remiss not to point out that under federal law there is no
such thing you can't have marijuana for any reason and we're going back to the Bush
presidency and the war on drugs and so their goal was to scatter the medical
marijuana can people here mill go back there if not just wave your hand the goal
was to spread this is far and as wide as possible if you have
a spread grass seed they wanted to get so many patients and so many caregivers that
the feds would just simply cry uncle. That's why you have the caregiver and you can
have 5 patients but he can never have more than 2 and
a half ounces per patient under the medical act of 2008 and they wanted to spread
as far as why it's possible and frankly it was
a success unless the government's going to suspend habeas corpus and put in
concentration camps you cannot possibly prosecute 300000 people it's just not
physically doable unless they would hire. $300.00 judges and
prosecutors that the whole system would collapse in on itself so what the feds did
is they just kind of steps. Did what they did in Colorado in California they said
Well as long as you kind of just keep it in your state we're going to back off and
they have infected that but you have to remember back in 2008 when this passed they
were busting people they were incarcerating people I was I handled one of the last
cases back then in 2009 there was 40 people involved in marijuana that was
going. And you would have thought that we'd shut the federal judiciary system down
here locally it was so hard to process 40 people and so we come from
2008 and they scatter it as far as why it's all of
a sudden you got 260000 patients and you get $60000.00 caregivers and the feds back
off which was the whole idea and the goal then was OK we're going to get
a foot in the door then we eventually want to go to recreational. In between there
in 2016 year we had the facilities licensing at the state finally got off the. Rear
end and decided you know maybe we could make some money on this and let's set up
a scheme to regulate it and tax it and whatever. They did really crummy job of it
and made it just the bottom possible unless you're
a millionaire to do it and then we had another ballot proposal. Which everyone I'm
sure is well aware of Prop one which didn't legalize marijuana OK and that's
a point made making throughout the morning it didn't legalize it OK marijuana is
not illegal you're just immune from prosecution if you do what you were told to do
in other words you can't smoke in public for example but the last bill there the
criminal laws are still there and if you step outside of the community so to speak
you get popped. So that is essentially how we get from 2008 to
2016 to 2018 frankly I think the state did
a marvelous job of really messing things up in 2016 and I think the people are just
fed up with it and said we want to record do
a recreational act and we're going to we're going to just make it so you don't have
to go to the doc get doctors and register with the stay in that type of thing. What
time but that's kind of a you will
a history of how we got here California had done marijuana 10 years earlier
and
a lot of other states had Michigan was the 1st on Midwest in the past by 65 percent
which was the highest rate of passage of any state in the union still is. As far as
Grand Rapids goes in 2008 when I'm
a passed so again that was the act that allowed for medical marijuana in general
with patients and caregivers model we developed an ordinance that time allowed for
caregivers to the doesn't touch patients at all but
a love for caregivers to grow plants as
a home occupation if they're licensed by the state. So that allow them for to have
home grow in their attic or basement or whatever might be. So that was in 2008
maybe that maybe 2100 passed out locally in our zoning ordinance that's forward
several years there was
a lawsuit actually based environs center that questioned the challenge I guess of
regulating that kind of use of the home occupation and. The municipality lost that
case so the city responded most recently when we passed the next ordinance by
removing that almighty patients so we used to regulate the patient caregiver model
we don't anymore. In 2016 when the and the. Medical facilities
Licensing Act to allow the different kinds of facilities. We developed an ordinance
of the time. That we would put those 5 types of facilities into the zoning
ordinance that's grower processor provisioning Center which is
a retailer safety compliance facility to test the products and then secure
transport we developed of the time but didn't go anywhere in the City Commission
said no thank you not right now so that was in in 2016 early 2017 and
then in April of I think 20 actually of 2018 the we
heard that there was potentially
a ballot initiative that would that would allow for all these these uses in the
city and the City Commission said OK it's coming let's develop an ordinance. Go
ahead plan department so we put together an ordinance in what. What from a from
a city planner perspective was super fast in like 2 or 3 months to an outsider
might feel like it was just dragging on forever. But in the planning world 2 or 3
months is not very fast to develop an ordinance or
a safe never slow it's it's very fast and trying to have some sort of meaningful
public engagement while you're developing an ordinance. That was
a present time line so July and July 28th mean we passed of zoning ordinance
amendment to allow for all 5 times uses that were enabled by the facilities
Licensing Act. Then a couple months later we were receiving
a lot of different comments from the community and from people wanted to open
businesses from land uses near those business locations. Basically telling us of
their problems with the ordinance. So then we had some more discussion with the
city commission more discussion the public and changed the ordinance in December.
To sort of try to find 2 things ended up with the ordinance we have today which is
not simple by any means it's pretty complex. But it is what it is.
April of this year. We had to draw sort of
a lot of lottery to help get applications for different. Types in line to go to the
Planning Commission we opened applications in in March at the draw on April and and
heard the 1st case Planning Commission in May. So we had about 9 of the other
patients in the 1st couple weeks of March right now that that list is down quite
a bit less because the way the ordinances is structured and I'm not going to go
into detail on that just suffice to say that we allow 5 types there is
a competitive process and some patients are really knocked out by others so I think
we probably have maybe 4 left on the queue I think we've. We approved 11 up
until this point. That are in various state stages of actually getting started and
also the losses due to that I'm that and then wrote
a book as far as record was so you made
a prop one passed in November 1 into effect in December and the City Commission
said we're not going to touch that quite yet we want to see how medical works out
there is
a timeline I'm sure we can speak about shortly but there is some work some sense of
urgency that the city commission has to make some decision and recreational fairly
soon we expect it to happen in the next month or 2 I don't know how it's going to
happen I can speculate but you have to make
a decision by November 1st though so that's the thing because the state because the
statute requires that cities. That the state starts taking that license out
occasions on November 1st so 2019 the city needs to have an ordinance in place
which is to regulate those those lists types so going to have to do something and
that's the sense of urgency we've been trying to part of the city commission and I
believe that they're hearing us and going to start taking actions and I know that
this particular event that you all are attending today is put on both by the city
of Grand Rapids and the King County Health Department so we may have some people
here while we're speaking from the line that amounts to going to bed who live in
camp wood or who live in walker or who live in Byron center that is within the
jurisdiction of the Kent County Health Department where this may not apply because
so many communities in this area have opted out right it's essential we're talking
about is whether or not we need to pallet evil opt out recreational and so and
that's an ongoing conversation that people can have with their local city
commission which is hey if it passed overwhelmingly in our community why are we
acting now what is it look like to reverse that decision there are so many
different processes that so many local communities are undergoing right now all
across the state of Michigan and that's you know
a follow up for people who are interested in that that's the fund where the
grassroots ballot initiative where we cannot talk about Headley. There but
a follow up question for you Landon You mentioned that the process has been wheeled
down for applications of medical marijuana application applicants at the Planning
Commission level that you started with about 19 and today you see about 40 how many
lines of that because I get this question so much in the community I would be
sitting in
a neighborhood association meetings and I'd be like well how many are we going to
have is it going to be
a can of this though or on every corner so how many licenses do you feed the city
of Grand Rapids approving and what would that look like what do we cost saturation
in grammatic. So the ordinance doesn't have
a cap the Michigan facilities Licensing Act allows communities to opt in or opt out
and if they opt in to set
a cap other this many maximum licenses are this Minox and each. Of the ordinance
does not have a cat however there is
a separation distance model so you have several different land use types so you
have to be at least
a 1000 feet from or in some cases 2000 to be something as the 1000 feet on the same
street. But basically as land you say it's
a residential zoning churches schools childcare centers purse parks that probably
on parks playgrounds and they will feel right now but going on right yes yes yes
yes kind of their games here they know that yeah backed up on Tuesday night we had
a public hearing at the city commission level about how they're going to recommend
their parks waivers from parks and so. I can't say
necessarily I can guess my best guess is that we'll have probably 25 to 30
standalone provisioning centers the retail sales of medical marijuana. And my best
guess also is that we may see 10 to 15 grow facilities sometimes with
a provisioning center co-located on the same property sometimes not sometimes in
the process and we don't have any Cabernets separation doesn't torrents for
separation or for testing labs or for secure transporters those tend to be taken
differently because they have very little impact them to do so. Although.
Everyone is looking at the map to find out the separation business game and has as
many parcels as are available and potentially eligible someone's trying to get in
there so we definitely have people who are trying to max out the map Max on the
number of facilities how on
a plane out is. So and thank you for that for expertise so
Grand Rapids is very diverse and we know here in our city we have. A lot of times
from our leaders make these really progressive ideals
a goal right being diverse being intentional about making sure we're educating
people around how these different policies disproportionately affect different
types of communities so that line I know had
a kind of opened up saying that we wanted to talk about how do these laws kind of
overlap of different populations when it comes pacifically to
a lot of what we're seeing in greater Grand Rapids around immigration reform the
immigrant community how would these different communities be impacted by some of
the legislation that if you want to start. It and again my. My
areas of expertise are somewhat limited but but they actually you know folks with
disabilities intersect most every other demographic group. And so what happens to
them after that happens to other groups also we're talking about diversity in
equity in inclusion. And quite frankly part of my job
is to make sure that when we're talking about these things and we're talking about
laws and ordinances and codes in opt in an opt out at some point that
gets down to a personal level with people who have names it impacts them OK as
a new business opens up can a person with
a disability even get in the door are there steps that are in the way is there
a ramp is the door wide enough is the counter to higher too low.
Those are kind of concrete things that impact the disability community but there's
other things because of the uncertainty of things many of our folks. Are on
entitlements they're on disability or food stamps or things like that and so is the
fact that the federal law and the state law conflict. Does that put some of their
federal entitlement in jeopardy if this is not a this is not
a kind and loving political climate right now and so is this something else that
could be used against our folks I guess is one of the things that we look at.
If and the other thing that I'm not sure this happens every every time we make
a decision is that we always don't get all the collateral things to begin with some
of the things we don't even think about. The society is aging 10000 baby boomers
turn 65 every day and that's going to happen for the next 17 years. So how does
that how does that impact how does that impact our society. What does that do
when when new laws are passed in new markets develop. I don't know we don't know
yet our hope is that we'll always have
a voice and we'll be able to. We'll be able to have our input but those are
those are things at least from the disability community those are
a few of the things that we think about access inclusion. Does How much does it
help us and how much does it harm us is there the potential for harm. OK
for me yes I would take 2 financial kind of places on this so the 1st thing as far
as immigrants if you are not a U.S. Citizen outside of being a U.S.
Citizen and he said this is still illegal so you jeopardize actually being able to
remain in the U.S.
So if you have
a green card or what have you that means any participation in earned income
receiving
a job or entrepreneurship can actually hinder you from being able to remain in this
country that's
a big big deal and we have to look at this because in addition to that we also have
expungement piece that was taken of one when it was actually pushed through so what
that means is that we know that black and brown people are 3 to 3 to 4 times more
likely to be arrested so someone who was an emigrant who was holding marijuana at
some point in time is $3.00 to $4.00 more times likely to actually be convicted and
arrested of having possession of marijuana what that does is it totally intil we
expunge and create
a pathway for them to become entrepreneurs and or and and and and to be able to
have an income we exclude
a whole group of people so major issue. Thank you so much
so recently the state of Michigan and it's actually going to start here in the I'm
going to circle back to this question about the changes that we see coming down the
pipeline the dissemination of information is power I thought he would knowledge is
power and the more I learned about the cannabis industry the more I learned that
things change at the drop of a hat I was just laughing at
a directive with well I was going to run 4th of July by dropping this memo changing
the way we do everything you know have
a great holiday and that happens all the time and in this industry because it's so
new in an emerging market it's hard to stay up on what changes every from week to
week from day to day and for the government of course engagement is always
a hurdle how are we reaching people but specifically in the cannabis industry how
do people who want to stay abreast of these changes stay aware outside of being
a part of a guild or
a group like we have on Facebook where we're constantly posting the updates how do
people stay in abreast of all the changes that happen day to day at the state level
and of course at the city level outside of just calling the planning department
like every day and saying hey did you guys change the map can I get
a copy of this due diligence Yes So what does that look like what you're
recommended way of staying abreast are there. Certain resources that you guys
recommend. Social media is
a big part of the cannabis industry if you're not participating in social media
because it was so underground for so long social media has really become
underground where road and where you kind of get information and the thing is that
we also look for other companies to be able to network with and be able to host
events I founded that if you don't even have the we plant or in your logo or it was
not green nobody wants to deal with you it doesn't matter would you still would you
have to really kind of promote in that sector what else would I say networking
social social media which is really big. And those will probably be it because it
is so new and it is such
a nice type of environment and so I think people are still worried. Outreach So
those would probably be my go to would be the actual social media groups and then
any kind of networking groups and then making sure that you join any newsletters or
publications and be is there's quite
a bit of publications that actually share updates about what's going on just in
Michigan so that would be much of. It.
Well the other thing I think that is really important is that there's
a lot of misinformation out there do you really get
a look at your source where it's coming from I mean the the best honestly the bus
the information you could get as you come to
a lawyer that gets e-mails every single day even on the weekends about this I'm not
aware of any particular groups I'm sure they're out there but you really gotta
watch out for because there's an awful lot of I mean I peruse the internet just to
see what's out there and I'm always shocked at the things that are being exposed as
all that's the law and now that's not. So I don't know of any particular groups
or email lists service. For the general public but they've got to be out there I
would think and that wouldn't I would be the best way about
a really look at where this coming from I'm looking at my phone now I'm like trying
to see I'm part of like 20 different cannabis groups and you read the off something
green in the logo but. And this this changes I think you especially for these
groups right there are groups for on Facebook and Instagram for people that are
looking to connect to the professionals their group specifically for hiring and
what I've learned is that you follow all these different groups as
a lot of them have the same trend we can't find supply Who are you guys going to
what are prices right now and that ongoing conversation everything from what's
happening legally to who's going to cannabis cup in Detroit right here in the
cannabis legal group is
a good one they advise and work with the Michigan regular marijuana regulatory
agency quite
a bit I follow them and they give lives they do law they do you know I was once
a week every week legally so that's always a go yep so the cannabis legal group is
a good one Michigan professionals are cannabis network is another good one I'm just
what I'm going to do is probably afterwards after this on the live stream I'll just
drop
a link to all the different groups and if you guys are on the Facebook group you
guys can just add yourself because I believe in social media again has not digital
native and nyc Like I said knowledge is power we can't do this every day we don't
know that city is going to do this every week but while we're here we can share
resources so we can all stay abreast of what's happening it is one thing that it
seems like there's a lot of information out there that's just
a record for people wanting to get into the industry typically as like
a business owner operator and not so much as for the average citizen saying. Things
look much like this was legal was not how do I don't agree with both system and and
so I think that it's a lot easier to go out and say I want to open
a grow or get their laws around that. I guess I really are very old for the very
1st I oughtn't to be portrayed or you know trouble. And it was that's kind of why
we did this and so you jumped on the scrap saying wow we can get you some
educational sessions including ones next week and Friday. You know if we can do
some educational sessions talking about what's legal how as an average citizen
going to be involved or make sure you understand what's legal. There are some some
more resources out there that I think the problem is that there is movement
information and things are changing. Good luck So what do you guys say is like the
primary impact of medical marijuana in this new law just on the everyday for.
The practically impact is that we've had you know since the war on drugs when it
a really started in the Nixon administration there's been no actual kind of
research for science based about around the benefits of marijuana and now as we see
the big boys
a really major corporations or the really big ones that we actually invested those
they're now able to put in research and give us science based benefits on their 23
different ailments that are going on so that's
a big big thing as he said is 10000 baby boomers that are turning 65 every
day these are the the major people who are switching from opiate based drugs which
we've seen what is done to our communities to benefits around medical marijuana so
just that in that instance of being able to have an alternative that is not.
Based that is not cannabis that's cannabinoid which we naturally have in our body
outside of having opiate drugs which has. Which oftentimes because becomes
addictive so
a great benefit for cancer lupus even though I've seen some benefits of V.
All of those things are one are 2023 different treatments so I think that in itself
is a major move to be able to no longer falsely occlude accuse it of being
a bad drug and see the benefits behind it well and clearly the number of criminal
cases that are being filed have just dramatically drop to they've just plummeted
the cases that I used to see for possession of marijuana use of marijuana even some
of the felony. Cases have does dramatically drop I don't have statistics or numbers
on of those laws to new but it's just dropped out of sight. It's
law and I think that's a good thing it's a good I think it's
a good thing you know we've been this war on drugs I think we just need to declare
victory and at least on marijuana and just just move on from it. But clearly
there's been
a human among us tremendous drop in the number of people being charged with crimes
and incarcerated for it because now you can have it if you do and follow all the
right steps which we can get into maybe today at some point. So so for the average
person who just wants to know today what is vs what isn't legal for if I just want
to go to the V.A.
Shop and buy
a pipe and smoke cannabis on my porch and where can I legally get it or can I
legally where can I drive work can I do we talk about wearing can't County and how
linking County and in Grand Rapids people access marijuana what's legal do it at
your house. You know you can't smoke in public. That is. Number
one rule of the medical act or the recreational act you cannot smoke in public and
your front porch is not public at least. It shouldn't be public should not
look but maybe your back porch would be better. But we have conversations and this
is this is a real question
a real conversation I remember sitting out in the West Grand they were the filthy
action and they were just like you know people are going to have this have access
to this outside of just smoking if they're going to be eating cannabis everything
there can be cannabis everywhere in the little pins and that's the moment of
calling the little pens they ever going to have little pens and that leaves that
legal can they have the Pens everywhere. What do you say to the people who have
questions specifically about the broader spectrum of ingesting marijuana outside of
just smoking it. OK. OK
So pretty much your consumption is that it's big now and I guess we got to kind of
think about it as as alcohol right so unless until we get into our special
special events in our cafes and all of the other stuff that we're looking for with
the recreational as of today you can't be just drinking out on the street and just
you know so don't do it you know you can't just get you know ever so you want to be
in the confines of your own home that's the safest way for you to be able to do it
that's the 1st thing it lets you have
a marijuana now. If you are not if you are an apartment don't understand it
if you don't own that you don't have
a mortgage on your landlord has the right to tell you I don't want to do it because
they own that facility they own that building so you can't get men to say Oh well I
think you know I can do it anyplace else not I think you're you can't do that so it
should be in the confines of your own home you know what about legalities around
age even I've had parents as anyone know you my aunt had
a condition and if they have
a condition what are the laws around that so as far as I know. You're supposed to
get. A doctor like autism right so you have
a child has autism they've been diagnosed with autism the doctor has approved it
then at that point you can submit and have someone write
a prescription for that child that child is then being able to prove you have
a medical card for the child and then they can be issued marijuana and whatever
form that is prescribed for them yes actually if you're under 18 you need 2 doctors
to approve it 2 separate doctors have to approve like the autism the 8 year old 9
year old 10 year old or the child with seizures to get
a medical care you'd have to get to doctors and register with the state the wreck
law is 21 years and older much like alcohol or anything under 21 so if you're 18
and you can get a card and use it till you're 21
a century that bridges the gap but to get the medical card obviously you need
a doctor and you've got to go through the whole registration process. With regard
to housing so. Sorry housing question if you don't own your own house
you know and you're in
a rental apartment. The use even in that private space is still subject to the
landlord's Yeah nothing can just release and also go for federal federally
subsidized housing that it's sort of it would be all yes all right you know what
you can do if you're if your housing is subsidized federally or any form and that's
a big thing literally it's
a problem here I know in the ski you like 70 percent of them I thought for
them some way which puts
a lot of people which we we would look at that and that's mostly going to be people
you know minority are black and brown So you still have a bit
a lot of opportunity there so there's still other ways for you to get in trouble if
you don't as they say stay in the ramifications of your thing we have not talked
about automobiles but you really same the same as the apartment it goes for
automobiles so you cannot smoke in your car just like you can't sit and drink
alcohol while you're driving. Under the recreational law even the passenger can be
smoking marijuana so even if you're not driving
a car you can't be smoking it in the car and the certainly the driver could not be
. Using it in the car what's what I and the trend I see happening if I have just
a minute here take you to the trend that's going on as
a number of alcohol driving cases are going down the drunk driving numbers are
going down so now what the police are looking at is people that are driving high
and I'm starting to see
a real uptick in cases where someone gets stopped because they didn't have their
headlights on and it was you have half an hour between sunset and having to turn
your lights on but the person got pulled over no alcohol but they didn't do well on
the standard field sobriety tests well I Got News For You I don't do very good on
those on any given day. You can say I have
a back right now so. When I'm sober you know I mean right no never say that by the
way is the worst I can do the even if I was sober OK.
But this lady was probably I was overweight and you know relatively heavy and just
didn't do real well so he arrested or takes her to jail hauled her car and gives
her a blood test and yeah it comes back with some positive T.H.C.
In anagrams and she gets arrested and charged with drug driving and that's
a real danger so there's one thing I would. Had to take one thing away today
is don't smoke and then drive or use marijuana on the drive I mean I would I would
give it at least 4 hours to let some of the active T.H.C.
Get out of your body because they're really cracking down on that drug driving
aspect of and I think it's going to get worse it's going to it's going to get much
much worse more Act I have a question go ahead my question is because the T.H.C.
Stays in your body from. You know so how are they I have no idea. How are they
measuring the level and about what they give no they take you and they take your
blood right now no they take you to
a hospital or some of the jails are set up with people that can draw blood the
officer can't but they'll have believe it's called off. At either at the jail or
that they get to
a hospital and take your blood. And then if heaven forbid you're on you've taken
something else that's going to show up to where they screen for 30 drugs. Or
haven't so if you have
a prescription for Adderall guess what that's going to show positive for
methamphetamine. And then they're going to say you had marijuana and you're high on
. Methamphetamine and it's a real mess it's
a romance but in the just to finish out the question the Act to think of act
there's 2 types of T.H.C.
There's the the body takes marijuana and converts it into something else just like
when you eat food OK Your body takes it and breaks it down into different parts of
metabolites active th they think of more of like alcohol so you have 4 drinks your
body gets rid of about
a drink an hour or so after about 4 hours you're not going to have alcohol in your
body the same way with T.H.C. Active T.H.C.
Which is the one that counts the metabolite the stuff that these in your body for
28 days doesn't count according to our Supreme Court of Michigan the metabolite
doesn't count the only thing you have to worry about is that active T.H.C.
Which is the euphoria or the high the high producing part of marijuana and that
typically leaves your body depending on how the strain is but.
Hour or 2 hours I always tell people for me because why do you want to run the risk
of
a drug driving I mean. But it should leave your body much like alcohol does and the
metabolite you don't have to worry about it because that's not considered
a schedule one drug and it's that they can they can even I have I'm able to keep
them from even mentioning that at trial the metabolite the stuff that stays in your
body 20 days. So we're going to wrap up pretty soon we're going to get to Q.
And A and just among We just have
a few more questions I want to ask. One being about how prop one is rolling out I
know you mentioned earlier some on that and one of the. Tenets of the ballot
initiative that was taken out the language that was or who was around expungement
originally what language was left in was interested primarily in seeing the state
create some type of social equity initiative that targeted ownership and profits
for the communities that were disproportionately affected by the war on drugs and
the prohibition of marijuana here in the studio and happens we've also like us at
the state of Michigan just recently announced what that social equity framework
will look like by naming 19 cities where they will have waivers for application
fees for people who qualify based on locality demographic and other things like
that what can we expect from Prop one and specifically from the social equity
initiatives and efforts that we saw kind of weaved into the intention of the ballot
initiative now in the room I'll post November. Well one of the big things I have as
we talked about if you mention is the $1000.00 opportunity zones not only is that
a initiative on the state level it's also an issue to have on one the federal level
as we look at the 2017 tax preference that's rolling out and so that is targeting
pretty much areas that did not come to pull everything together at the 2008 but so
these are our disproportionate areas we know that
a lot of the dispensaries in the retail places will be going into those areas we've
seen this before with the liquor stores right so we know that they'll be going into
those areas in addition to that there's 2 things that we have to do to make this
right and one needs to be for us to provide the community that this that these
businesses will be in to provide them entrepreneurship opportunities and and.
Earned income opportunities jobs so what that's going to look like and what we're
hoping for moving forward is one discounting the prices the waivers that will go
forward in those areas right to give individuals in that in those areas social
equity we know that there's
a difference between gentrification and redevelopment gentrification happens when
everybody moves in and those people are no longer able to participate in their
community we development happens when we're able to reinvest into the community and
have those same citizens be able to participate there in addition to that there
also has to be some job training that goes on so
a lot of those who we look at the my view and a lot of the other good neighbor X.
Having. Come communities that were that there's
a certain percentage of the jobs are given to the individuals that are citizens of
those communities in addition to that making sure that they're that they're working
at least 30 hours or more that's really really big we all want to be in
a green rush but I don't think nobody wants
a part time job right so being able to have something that they can feasibly be
able to utilize and then on and those are all big things on job training.
Training discounts but I will say this the green area is a big it's
a big big thing and we have to look at the monies that have to be held in reserve
so I don't think that that should change and the reason being is because if
something were to happen most of those individuals or those businesses will not
stay in Inception if they don't have enough money in reserve because it takes about
6 to 9 months for you to actually be able to grow so those things have to be
educated to the community and then we have to make sure that there is
a certain percentage of licenses that are going to individuals and minorities to
say. Landed from from the cities perspective. We
would medicals moments in. Which was a program
a sort of incentive program that we created to help. Incentivize certain aspects of
the medical licensing program. In the city we are trying to incentivize 15 percent
or more of local ownership that played out in various ways 24 percent or more
contracting use of contractors or micro local business enterprises and 30 employees
and 30 hours
a week or more. And I I feel like the jury is still out on how effective that was.
If it really sort of really met the goals of the city commission was trying to
various outcomes that they had in mind. As far as
a social equity program goes at the state you know grown up is not one of those 19
communities that was chosen we talk to the state it's some length about that and
said Hey why you know this is well
a certain income level who was there were there looking over his own income and the
poverty level and conviction rates you associate of marijuana. And we you know
we're noticing these lads he was one of them and when it will Hey I'm not going to
the same thing I'm like if I have the other hand we said hey is there an
opportunity for for example if you're looking certain census tracks in the city
that might meet these criteria instead of the whole city. And they didn't sound too
open to it at this point but it was it was staff talking to staff so and that
social equity program essentially reduces the fees that are associated with trying
to open a business to get a license. I can say that we we have
a work crew that we're we're working on this trying to figure out how can we as
a city. Try to sort of echo what the states doing if it's waiver of fees or if
there are other things we can try to do to increase employment is the issue from
the governor perspective is that we can't say Boy we'd love to have some businesses
in this in this realm operated by black or brown people right but we can say let's
focus on
a certain area to do an. And how could an end and what's the most important should
we try to focus on access to jobs in that area or to try to focus on access to
business licenses. That we saw with the medical is that these minimum Cavaliers
ation requirements from the state were out of reach for
a lot of people in the areas where we wanted to to increase ownership or
participation we're talking like it were from under 200000 to 30000. Minimum
capitalization fit for 25 percent I think being liquid and then also an annual fee
to the state of more than $60000.00 you know in many cases so we had
a lot of people saying well that you know your your issue with the city isn't so
much what's stopping us as much as the state issues I like that the recreational
program in addition to having the site so that every program takes away some of
that capitalization requirements but how we can get it to be reflected in the city
level is still
a work in progress. But I can say that many commissioners have it in mind this is
a this is a major priority is just
a question of how can we design it to to work and work in the ways that they're
really hoping this one I will say that's something that we were super
a conversation that we had recently this week we had
a planning meeting for the black and brown canvas Guild at the chamber and we were
planning the expungement clinics for the end of September and. Beds and harbor and
we were planning some tours and some other things for the black about cannabis
guild and one of the sentiments that kept coming back was in Grand Rapids where we
had
a mayor in recent years who was so bold as to say racial equity was her number one
priority we got more bike lanes we got more trees and we didn't see much movement
on black and brown ownership economic prosperity justice reform and what do we do
for that and I started having
a real conversation around what it looked like in Grand Rapids right to be serious
about this some of us were talking about OK let's get. Cleared expungement
a sponge or an awareness right that's bigger than cannabis that's really about
removing barriers and saying to people who's paid their dues their time let's
remove barriers so that you can continue to live your best life and have
a. Access to opportunity that was one of the things that we talked about doing here
in Grand Rapids but another thing we talked about was how recently the state has.
Shot even more light on the opportunity to host events we have
a real robust cultural scene here and Grand Rapids where every want to have an
African festival Hispanic festival we have the 616 gram production night silent
discos we're just
a cool city right where beer City USA We love our our vibrant culture here the
state recently shed more light around temporary permits for events and things like
that. And how even that is also in the hands of the municipality right people are
asking will if we can't have cannabis near parks can we have cannabis at parks and
of course I said in the Parks and Rec board so I can't speak to that today but how
do we say that that's going to what do you say is going to happen as physically
around those additional types of life and live in and around how we kind of stick
our our language around with here. I have 2 suggestions for you I want to hear him
grow this case and how you guys could tell we have this right you can have this you
could take this so 2 things that I would love to see is the 1st thing I would love
to be able to see cannabis incubators brain and so I think that this is
a wonderful idea we now have micro businesses those micro businesses individuals
are able to create vertically integrated that is mean just stacked on top of
a big deal but vertically integrated business is that is a grower and
a processor and then
a retail So what if we had 20000 feet dividing incubators that we would be able to
put these businesses in they can stay in Inception for 3 to 4 to 5 years until
they're able to grow and become a major entrepreneur at that point way so that's
a great thing we see we've seen the benefits of the co-op and incubator how it's
worked so many times well think about how that can impact such
a new industry and how people would be able to grow so I think incubators for
cannabis business is
a great idea in addition to that I don't know if you know this but every state
penitentiary in the state of Michigan if someone is a groundskeeper they receive
a hold of cultural license guess what somebody that you have
a limited training now Heaven forbid but as long as they do not have
a marijuana or
a controlled substance felony or misdemeanor they can actually go into what we
consider a 2nd Chance program you imagine how impactful that would be for
a community for individuals to be able to come back and make $20.00 an hour as an
apprentice and stay in
a program and then be able to potentially make 30 dollars an hour we know that
a lot of our crime is related to poverty so those are 2 things you have. Done
part of it can I just jump in real quick you know there's one of the things that we
work on as far as folks with disabilities and that is changing attitudes because
quite frankly there are some. Things that you just cannot legislate you can make
laws and you can make rules and you can put all those things into place but
underneath that people are still going to look at it and they're going to make up
their mind how they're going to address that are they going to accept it
unconditionally are they going to say well OK if you make me I'll do it are they
going to say NO MAKE ME I'm not going to do it at all and trust me I run into that
all 3 of those attitudes almost every day with the Americans With Disabilities Act
and things like that so I think one of the things that's key no matter what we're
doing is to is to not ignore the fact that this has
a perception in people's minds and that needs to be addressed OK
depending on their depending on their age depending on their background depending
on their ethnic groups OK I don't let and I were talking
a little bit I don't know if you're aware of it but this is the 50th anniversary of
Woodstock. OK maybe that's appropriate for this. But I say that
because you know I'm an idiot here. I am in my seventy's so if you talk to people
my age about marijuana it's not unlikely that you're going to get Wow cool. You
know. And I just you know your comments real quick about it not only for in this
realm but in anything we get this all the time where. Why or what it was is only
ordinances where this isn't right and we should change this we should change this
to the city commission and the municipality to the government tends to tends to
create laws that reflect public sentiment in that city so we had 70 percent or
something of the city vote yes on Iraq so we expect that the city commissions in
Iraq. Is going to happen but if there are some the perception issues and every time
we have people
a city commission chambers and say yes this sounds where it is always other people
who weren't who didn't come out to the polls and who come out of the woodwork and
on favor of this and so I think if you're concerned with how this any ordinance
rolls out you've got to make sure it's talk to your legislators because what
they're going to do is going to generally reflect public sentiment public
priorities. We're going to see what's happening in
a specific moment specific and education goes
a long way in changing that you know right I talk to business people who say man
you're making me build a ramp that's going to cost me X.
Amount of dollars Well let me tell you what it else is going to cost you if you
don't build the ramp there's $1.00 in 5 people in Michigan has
a disability so you've just cut your market share by 20 percent and it's even
greater than that if you talk about. Family members of people with disabilities
caregivers. Older folks like myself who are who have caught the disease to him
which is T.M.B.
Which is too many birthdays and we're. We're aging into disability OK. So when
I say hey wait
a minute you really want to cut your market share 20 percent then they look at that
ramp differently we do we do
a lot of stuff right now with experience Grand Rapids the tourism group in terms of
monitoring businesses for accessibility so that they can put out literature that
tells the disability folks OK this is
a hotel you can stay and you know what's happened. Competitors have figured out
that they need to get on that list OK So what started with us as
a small project with about 20 sites is I think close to 100 right now absolutely no
one to to assess and put out that information so it's it may not be completely
believe galaxies but the but the impression or the attitudes about the laws coming
in are important I think you need to be dealt with absolutely absolutely and the
work to be stigmatised cannabis is happening all across the industry I have
cautioned so many cannabis companies about the way that they engage the Grand
Rapids neighborhoods in the neighborhood associations and the most vocal
individuals at the city commission meeting and the sentiments that they express and
how they do and sometimes don't represent how the general population feels right
everyone is much more honest in the privacy of
a ballot box than they are once they can stand in front of
a city commission Mike and for a lot of reasons you don't see
a lot of people who go into that space because it takes
a certain amount of transparency. And so we do need everyone to lend sound advocacy
to the opportunity here and to to be honest about what some of the pros and cons
are even along this diet today that the transparency that it takes to say we don't
know around so many things about information and the information flow how things
are changing and what's going to happen we don't predict the future all we do is
quickly pivot every time we get new information in that is marijuana right now that
is medical that is recreational we're all doing it together and the people who pull
the strings on how this works are beholden to the voters to the taxpayers to the
residents of Michigan and so you all have some type of opportunity there to
advocate for what you want to see and how you feel about some of the changes as
they happen. So I'm going to ask my closing question in just
a minute but I want to take this moment to open it up for some of you I've seen
pins moving the entire time so I want to. I give you guys
a chance to ask. The wonderful folks up here some questions so you can make your
way down to the mikes here and here or if you like we can also have and then look
at the grab
a mike and take one around to you so if we have any questions I see some folks
packing up their notebooks come on down to the front and then I'll just bounce back
and forth and we'll try and answer some of those questions for you guys thank you
very much we can start right here with you they are ready you got all right I love
it I love it like I did I'm going to start right here and then we're going to go
here who is it on. And I would if you turn that went on to
up there you can thank you all for being here today like this was
a real treat I just found out about this yesterday and I was excited to see that it
was going on as a. Welcome thank you I had
a couple different questions but my 1st one is more like legal wise so.
I have a property that's fairly large it was originally part of
a Homestead area all the property surrounding it back or 100 years ago as part of
this particular area however it's across the street from
a school so if say for instance someone who had
a card and was smoking on their front porch which is technically legal are they
still breaking any laws because they're in there with they're not the distance
legal wise they're encroaching on so technically if they stepped out on their front
stoop it be illegal. You know when they're on their porch you're talking about the
fells and for. Them that's what exactly and that would be if you stepped up I
believe on my front porch you'd be about that 1000. Under federal law if there
was federal law right and you're breaking the law and you get
a lot of money for 5 years that money somewhere and no matter what you do that so
under state law though it is marijuana specifically excluded from the Drug Free
Zone OK so you would not be breaking the law. And then make sense yes that
completely makes sense but my 2nd point is that this is legal to party here and
we're snorting Crow cocaine. Before Yeah there are other things I don't know if you
know where we got that was made sort of I have made that clear Yeah OK so the be
part of my question was then so could you define for me legally what's under the
law an educational institution because I've noticed lately that I know that
different daycare centers around here in child care places that technically before
weren't schools they were employing teachers seem to have received either grants
from the different organizations or money from the. Current head of the Department
of Education these places now though technically they weren't schools before and
they're not charters they're just childcare but they now employed teachers and they
actually offer classes for things such as you know pre-K.
And whatnot would those be deemed as well as educational facilities. Well you told
local definition is hold
a private school OK let or stay with instructors honor that's our local ordinance.
I don't feel better but you can check Laura to see if there is
a license childcare facility that's my mom's or not I figured it was as much as
that I just wasn't quite sure like if those because previously they weren't
necessarily educational facilities they weren't employing actual teachers they just
had staff and childcare providers so. That I think that that answers it for me
thank you so much for being here also short notice and OK in the next hour or so.
That's where question is the 1st. Time it. Will start.
With life good luck. With. The news only
11 were so far out of the 9 it's like how do you get.
So you want to tell me to force one year to tell me to force her I just do the
foresaid How do you go about getting licensed so far and get
a life and I. Was so angry and started right
so as of right now with the social that I know of you guys correct me if I'm wrong
with the social activity then there are waivers for your application for different
fees I don't know of any grants that they're given away money for we but if you
find out let me know right so this is what I'll say this I decided I the federal
government. Over my is not going to give you any money yet now I guess you're going
to not going to emerge with Ira and then I'll take that part of the financial
opportunities so one of the big things that you can actually look and I have
lending I have probably access to about $10000000.00 of individuals that are
investing and lending partners of mine that are looking to be able to invest in
cannabis businesses if you are a cannabis business there's
a couple things and this is what I do all the time if you're interested in actually
participating in a can of his business crowdfunding is also
a wonderful idea if you have
a big social media platform and if you have intellectual property that doesn't mean
that oh I'm
a grower and I thought this is cool I need you to be able to figure out it's got to
be something good about it investors want to invest in one of 2 things either their
vesting in business in that business plants or they invest in the intellectual
property which is trades trademarks and patents so that's one of the opportunities
that you can be able to do it in that way or find
a venture capital So that's those are all different ways for you to be able to get
into the business last but not least state of Michigan has created micro businesses
it's only $6000.00 for you to be able to get
a license in the 1st year and then you're able to do renewables but what that
allows you is you can grow up to 150 plants then you are able to pass. Maybe you're
a great cook you can go and make edibles if you become
a compound this you can sell or not be
a retail store OK But your question is Where do I get money right yeah we get to
the end OK you're not going to be able to get it from the the S.B.A.
The Small Business Administration and most banks are not going to lend you money OK
banks don't want nothing to do with the way business absent some change at the
federal level so you're probably going to have to either have it or have or.
Delve into like venture capital people that have money that are willing to invest
in such things crowdfunding and I'm investing there are lenders that are
alternative lenders that will will that will but it is the bay with you it's going
to be a little bit of
a higher interest rate so that's another opportunity no you're not getting it from
as you know but there are other opportunities for you to be able to do it and save
Bank and still that's that could change really really so if the save Bank is
actually approved so there is opportunity we're not saying no we just they're not
right now. I just want to add though that if you go to entrepreneurial spirit is
ations like score or gain or star and
a lot of times if they're federally funded like score for example they can't help
you the moment you say marijuana they'll say oh boy sorry you cut because they have
federal funding so you just have to watch out for that it's as if he were funding
from just trying to get help but to their points about alternative access to
financing isn't isn't available at this point could be if legislation changes as
far as licensing question goes state is different you also have your local local
licensing approval it's just not easy right now I think we might see opportunities
open up if one wreck gets approved locally I don't speak for the city of Grand
Rapids but medical wise right now it's come talk to me and we can talk if you're
trying to get into the city of grown up it's. Not easy goop.
So we're going to we're going to go over here and then we're going to come back
thank you so much for your question Guy and morning my name is April Moir Safran
C.V.T. My husband I are interested in opening
a provisionary center we were thinking more recreational but. I'm wondering about
the timeline in the process because if we apply for
a medical which of course has that I think it's 300000 or capitalization
requirement but I'm under the I understand the medical provisionary centers will be
the 1st ones to be handed recreational license that's correct so then if we file we
have to you we can file for record license it doesn't have that capitalization
requirement but we saw fully 2 years so in that 2 years is there something that's
going to come down the pipe where there's going to be
a cap on recreational like what if all of the medical provisionary centers apply
for all of these recreational licenses and then we've got
a wreck licens where waiting out or 2 years and then the market's either saturated
or we're no longer able to find property that's affordable and on that affordable
property on the read maps how often are they updated and if we're applying for
either
a medical or rec license do we have to go off that weed map in order to find
a location. Well the really good question and this is everybody's best everyone's
question I know nothing about Wade map so I can answer that maybe someone here does
but as far as the recreational versus the medical there is
a clear distinct advantage to getting him out of school because you're basically
a shoo in to get a recreational. On the other hand it's
a very complex and very expensive process to get the medical license. The state is
going to star accepting recreational in November and they have to issue them within
90 days of applications so I don't I don't I don't I mean if I were if you were to
come to me and say what should I do I'd probably say. Get your preamp done. And
then November 1st file for it by understand that we can get
a license in 90 days after we apply but I thought that we could actually be up and
running that there's somewhere in there there was
a 2 year wait period. So the state the state statute that allows for recreational
marijuana has
a requirement that except for I believe this is except for class A growers or micro
businesses only medical licensees can get
a recreational license for the 1st 2 years right but the legislature has an
opportunity next November to change that if they want to I can say we've had some
local. Industry sort of advocacy saying hey let's let's if you talk about
a city Grand Rapids let's hold off or like if we're going to opt in let's not make
it effective for at least
a year or 2 years. To the city commission I don't know how it's going to go but I
think people are keyed into that and saying well hey we didn't feel like we had
a really good shot the 1st time around with medical We don't want to send
a map of recreational so because of the city commission would you hold off on sort
of maybe do
a temporary opt out or something to that effect. Whether or not that's going to
happen I have no idea who sets the $300000.00 capitalization requirement as I'm
going to say you if you would talk to the state of Michigan so your state of
Michigan a lot of people call up to M.R.A.
Like that the director Bridwell was just talking about this is what they do all day
every day and after these questions if you call the Michigan marijuana regulatory
agency or if you email them or even they're doing meetings all over the state right
now about rolling out cannabis they were doing them all last week I think it was
August 12th through like 70 they had their 1st week of start at meetings they're
just these free informational sessions where the marijuana regulatory agency and
they're targeting of course starting these 1000 communities where the opportunity
zones are but literally anybody can show up and ask questions and one of the things
that they said is because this industry is so new and people have so many questions
in Michigan about this especially industry folks is they are encouraging people to
e-mail them and call for clarity just because it changes so quickly and it's just
a bill on the top
a memo this is how we're going to do this and then everyone in the industry has to
respond to say this is the road to how it's going to go and this in she weighed on
legislators so that's why I recommend to you because while this is
a really great like city and county diet I do say for state level questions call
him directly because they may shed so much light on things some much better than I
think I mean as
a pilot is can speculate are the Weed Maps is that something I thought that was
through the city of. Out of the city so that we publish
a map that tries to show the best are our best guess essential with the information
we have available of where what properties are eligible and where the current
applications are OK and that's updated about every 2 weeks because. As applications
are approved or denied by the Planning Commission it takes 2 weeks for those
approval or those decisions to go into effect and so we updated 2 weeks after the
Planning Commission to make sure those come off. The map or on the map so during
the application process we do not have to select
a property that's on the read map but if it's approved it will be added You have to
select
a property the map that shows the different properties and how we think they're
eligible that's our best guess it was eligible or not eligible so you want to make
sure you find
a location that's on that map shown as eligible. At least we're 95 percent sure
those maps or are accurate OK thank you and then before we go to the next question
thank you so much for your question I want to make
a quick time announcement our organizer did say that it's OK we have 15 minutes to
go over because what's next is just Cordell mingle session so if you guys want to
go in the hallway mingle you're free to and we're going to sit here and continue
with the question we're going to lock the lines here so we can get through these
questions or we're going to make our answers
a little bit we're going to answer in brevity I'm not going to I'm not going to
other time OK but I'm just like that with the. Know what we're going to do is we're
going to lot of you have any additional questions please remember that you can go
back and watch this 1st watch live streamed my phone calls in question for you all
is of course going to be how people say involved as they connected to you but we
want to get through these quickly 1st but I wanted to make that time announcement
to honor your time and to honor your itinerary anybody move in so let's get going
go ahead. So my question was well me and my partner are looking to do things online
now how will how would that look legally and like with licenses and whatnot if you
want to sell products like such as like you know there's
a legal Yes federally illegal so once you go online most of the time ago shut you
down in most cases because you are crossing the line right so long as you're in the
state of Michigan as he sit there saying we're OK because we have we can
interstate the government is saying that we're OK this is still very legal you can
not say Oh Canada is over to Ohio or Florida and the people don't come and knock on
your door and single digit bridges that's what it is so we'll have an online now
accessories is one thing but being able to distribute unless it is
a state and we've even had that was yeah like I would. Say the baby ended up
becoming you know well see him became legal and that's still we still have
a lot of states and
a lot of issues going on where you can't even take transactions in sump. He says
because it's so gray so you have actually I don't hate how. Happy you so much
entree into that you know what I said in my lead into C.B.D.
Or kiddushin is
a stripe strip the margin sign yet March and they sent me an e-mail in time and we
hope it works out for you we've done which you. Know I was mad so
a lot of people Pay Pal I think will still take us but
a lot of I don't know somebody others do and so maybe I actually this is why I'm in
all these groups because all of them are talking about the models to transacting
business being online Yeah they're going out software all that is saying that very
regularly and that's because I still found it illegal so just being very careful
with that now suggestion for you because I always like to see people make money
maybe you might want to do excesses accessories are legal you want to sell stuff to
people in California there's
a lot of women who want to smoke just the stuff that's pink. I think you go thank
you so much for your nice they're like oh I have
a couple of questions the 1st question is will there be any requirements for the
businesses that are looking at Michigan to grow your business will they have an
equity Claw will they be required to have
a social equity clause within their plans because I had just read an article that
said like
a business in Canada was looking to make Michigan it's like one of its hubs way and
I'm thinking about you know did you forget the different regions for cation I mean
a bell at MIT and
a lot of people who are bringing money or having the capital to establish these
larger businesses are going to end up pushing out folks who either aren't able to
work there or can't afford to live in those places anymore so that would be one
question and then my 2nd question is how are law enforcement being prepared to have
these conversations particularly with us with consumers because I work actually
work a G.V.
. Thinking about kind of like thinking about the population that I work with
a lot of students car coming from out of town and I really want to do
a program. I'm around this morning. So I know that obviously it's illegal still
because we receive federal funding that being said
a lot of the leniency process. And procedures are toward alcohol like that in my
peas and things of that nature so what is that you know like for Ready cannabis
Well what I want to start with telling you is just something that I learned when we
were talking about planning this right just as frequently as we say look at each
other we're questioning eyebrows they're doing that right now in law enforcement as
well we've had our P.D.
Come into the neighborhood association meetings when we're presenting plans on
zoning and they always say you know we are still trying to figure this out even for
this event today they reached out to at least 3 times to get someone on this panel
and they were just like. And that's not to say that you know that they aren't but
the feeling the overall feeling is that we're all trying to figure it out together
and especially with the dynamic with the police and reform or change when it comes
to things happening in anger and abbots and there and county sheriff department all
these other law enforcement legs their arms if you will they're still trying to
figure it out and so and what I tell people especially people of color is never
forget that law enforcement in policing is discretionary and so where you see
outcomes affected by who you're being who isn't forcing those laws that's not
changing legalizing cannabis and change that and I think students I want to grab
these very chairs great. Well I don't but I am I right OK But yeah I
tell students just tread lightly Be careful don't make
a decision that's going to ruin your future and like you said even with being an
immigrant right you have to tread lightly and I want to you Castle's because. Well
I'll take the 1st part of your question so the 1st part of your question talking
about companies from Canada so Canada is very very progressive We know that they
were one the 1st ones you can even participate on the can maybe in Stock Exchange
or the Toronto Stock Exchange if you don't have
a anomic inclusion piece on your in so we love Canada for that actually going to
Toronto next year to speak to some of the individuals on the Toronto Stock Exchange
to talk about economic inclusion so that's
a big thing the 2nd part of that is the Melissa pallet he's have a have
a they can decide on whether or not they're going to use. A real estate meaning
that the license is attached to the actual property or matrix system and their
maker system has the ability to include economic inclusion along with the social
impact that we also have so that's
a wonderful way for them to be able to do it so those 19 opportunity zones what
does that look like for them that's making sure that they're able to that business
is that come in participate in hiring individuals from that community in addition
to that making sure that they're offering training to that community and then last
but not least as we look at these opportunities owns making sure that we create
provisions by discounts on licensing applications to individuals who are citizens
of those zones because one thing that we do know if the green rush were to leave
those businesses that are owned by individuals who live there they will still be
able to flourish and we see that all the time when the economy changes so do
businesses
a lot of the time but people who actually are invested in that area will probably
be able to stay and that's the difference between development and education. Thank
you so much and we're going to answer as quickly as possible for the next few days
and now we're getting up on our 2nd. I'd like. To have Hello my name is Sam I'm
a partner in
a grow up aeration is coming here to Grand Rapids so I can grab in the granary
March. So I've been I'm going through the state approval system and also through
the city approval system just 2 things I want to say as far as people of color
because we as we look around in the business we don't see anybody else like us as
applying for transporter and when you think about investment don't think about
yourself think about
a group of people that's on my my group came about there's 4 different families and
the 2nd thing is that there is no such thing as public money for you to do this
thing so you have to generate your own investment you basically have to get
a master's and you know how to run the business from A to Z.
But my comment was more to the Movida because I know 1st of all thank you to the
city for making this platform available. But I also feel like we made
a lot of mistakes and
a lot of mishaps with the Movida pricing local people that have grown up in the
idea I wasn't born in Grand Rapids I lived there 31 years of my life but I do
consider myself a local person and I'm
a veto for me having 30 employees my 1st year when I'm myself and my partner's
other one work in the business in order for it to make it grow where David and
we're completely competing against you know Mr Jones said something very
interesting that is kind of the bases about business without giving too much of our
secrets of
a marketing plan but it's this idea of acceptance and the stigma around marijuana
where we're OK with seeing somebody drunk stumbling around but if somebody smells I
mean I want to you know we're like oh my gosh what's going on so part of them
a beat I think hurt some of the local businesses as we tried to get into the
business not only that but the 2nd point is when when the attention was brought to
some of those bad players in the lottery I think we could have done
a better job as the city monitoring those bad players we know that individuals. You
know their good neighbor plan was not in time they didn't engage in the hours they
were supposed to and so those individuals got you know ahead of other individuals
in the lottery which then priced out some of the local people as well so I think
monitoring and really being transparent as to the process could help
a lot of the local people and just asking our input I mean realistically if me and
5 or 6 of my partners are the war running the business we can't qualify from
a beat after the 1st year because we don't have 30 employees and we're just trying
to keep our head above water you know growing 500 plants when the plant down the
street is going 50000 plants but again this is what you get into this is part of
the risk but I think from the city standpoint we could have done
a better job with good input from those individuals and not only that but
monitoring those bad players that were there that honestly
a lot of people brought to the attention of the commission say hey this is this
isn't right with this person was in there or that group was in there so that was my
only comment thank you for thank you that lead in the fire you do you want to
respond to. Me point just. Land use land use approval
sorry when I said. Property and not owner so when we approve.
You know we the city commission made the rules and I can speak to how much they
thought through what they were doing when they met the rules pleasured and set up
but. You know no you didn't hear was the word in its luster and recorded great.
You know the I think their intentions are right. And how how we were able to apply
it was very difficult and for what it's worth we cut out several applications but
you can't you can't say hey I think you're a bad player because the moment
a good player comes in and the Planning Commission or city commission says do
whatever you can to get them through the process. Let's say they go through
a process and everyone says these guys are great they're making the
a good decision for all the wrong reasons these guys are great let's make sure that
they get approved and then they turn around and sell it to somebody else the next
day and this happens all the time so so you can say oh this guy's
a hometown hero we love them and turns around and the person the boogie man in the
room that everyone doesn't like from Detroit comes in and says great and here's
a $1000000.00 I'll buy that off thanks so much and it happens all the time so I
hear you're saying. There's there's only so much you can do to control who is
owning what and how who's operating and to that question like to the point about
how do we incentivize participation in this industry you know ownership in this
industry from certain populations have great intentions and it can turn around like
that and it can still be rich white men that come in and take over the industry I
hate to sound like
a downer but that happens all the time so the intentions of there the execution is
very hard to figure out. Thank you so much for your question and congratulations
again on the Grammy help goes well yeah. My questions are about out of those
1st one like is it legal to produce them because I remember one time they were
talking about was illegal to change the substance or something and then if so what
kind of life sons would do. And then the driving part do you know how long you
would have to have edibles out of yours you know before
a tie to your system so I guess it's to become a compound. I'm sorry
a compound this and micro business I had
a bad experience when I was half or 3 and I. Never gave up so the reason
is because
a lot of individuals is really really cool you like Wow I make brownies I make
cookies I'm so good at it and you have no idea how much T.H.C.
Us put in the short story it is God there's an amount of T.H.C.
That that is agreed upon in every state I think what is it milligrams or some of us
whatever it is well we had
a. We sat there we ate this 3 course meal it was delicious and then the chef came
out and we said how much T.H.C.
Do we he said I get to that part yet. Not so for 3 days almost quit mound I
was becoming something I said to not talk to myself for 12 hours and so because of
that because edibles once they get into your system it's not like smoking weed you
can't stop it it takes over my SO experience with it out of all was in Colorado and
they have like these little chocolates on the same everyone is the same way here I
need
a medically OK I can't smoke because I have seen already so I have to buy
something that I is. Predictable so to keep you from going to jail 1st thing you
want to do is become a compound as
a figure out how much to be able to measure the T.H.C.
Next thing is it looks like you could probably go into business and be able to look
so that way you can grow you can process and then you'll be able to to utilize that
and that looks like that's probably the best way for edibles to go into business as
a right now but I encourage. Become
a compounds and find out how much T.H.C.
Is in the air somebody really be in trouble and listen start this process or
license is
a process of life and I mean you just need to make sure if you're going to go
through that process that you have to get your products tested and they have to be
homogeneous as far as A levels so that you don't end up with
a woman and edible with 100 milligrams of nothing so there's there's
a lot of science is
a lot of science to be know that's the compound is but the science is never behind
it but just be due diligence with somebody good and for transparency at the last
Michigan. The Cannabis Industry Association Conference Saskia from Colorado came in
I was talking about how the 1st wave of figuring this industry out for them was
legalization and then the 2nd way for them was figuring out how to regulate when it
came to labels and talking about potency because it became
a whole different game where people were trying to create the you know the people
get so excited they want to create something new and folks come to Colorado who
aren't prepared for what they have access to and everything's the same size but
it's completely different potency and so they were that new fight is how are we
going to regulate this so that people are being safe that people know what they're
doing and so that there's some common education around what you're getting yourself
into primarily around edibles and primarily around the different substances big
Once you get
a step further than just how to grow it where to sell it and rolling up and putting
in a joint right there is
a whole different part of the industry that they even in Colorado are still trying
to figure out in the 2nd part of that is she said the one thing we got wrong in
Colorado is social equity and now they're working on its elevator licenses for
minorities and women and that's something that they're doing in Colorado that I've
been watching and working with them on but everyone still trying to figure that
piece out when it comes to like the impotency all that stuff so we're probably
going to get there next in Michigan so. There's schools in California and
kind of around that you can go to any courage Please educate yourself this is very
very important because as we look at it as an insurance agent. True story and
a really really quick men and women got a candy bar there was
a cannabis candy bar it was the legal amount was terminal grams we had to take this
on a test similar 10 grams or whatever it was $100.00 that was
a he decided he was going go home killed his wife now went to jail but they sued
the company that he got the candy bar for so they had to give him $10000000.00
while he spends the rest of his life in jail but they were at fault understand this
it is imperative that you know how much T.C.
You are given individuals because everybody reacts to it extremely different and
the burden is on you could you make it so what I'm hearing is not illegal in
Michigan to produce
a lot of balls but there are regulations to go with that. Task are you using them
for yourself or are you going to send the seller know I'm considering like whether
it would be financially beneficial for me to produce them for others no not for
myself then you'd have to get
a process or license you there under the medical act. For the facilities Licensing
Act or into the recreational act follow all the rules and application forms and
processes. Thank you so much for your question on Best of luck to you we're going
to finish these last 2 and I'm going to execute your answers to 60 seconds or less
because we've hit another. Milestone OK another milestone that we're going to call
a friend is
a milestone OK My question is I left field old as I work for the county had problem
and I do a lot of work in the schools so for now I'm understanding if you have
a medical marijuana card you have to consume that at your home correct. Public
that's not public so how does it work if a child or a student has
a medical marijuana card and they need to have their medical marijuana distributed
them throughout the day how does that work does anyone have any input on that if
not to have any resources that would direct me to where I could find that out I
have no I I don't that's cool in there does it need to be maybe before or after
they go to school. If it's at their home I'm not sure I don't know I would probably
have a conversation and I will say again like some schools feel
a lot differently than others there is
a different part of education they do things to many different schools and so for
some of them it's not even about you know what the student needs about what they
don't want at their school and I think that's higher up the legislative pipeline
than where we touch right now in the diocese but I would say calling to ask at the
state level maybe M.R.E.
Would shed some light on that and then of course talking to that school but ensure
that school board and I think anecdotes are important in conversations that we have
around campus because again we have to overcome stigma 1st to get to the real
benefits of medical and that's kind of just the way that we are right now yeah
dissing but is there
a core in peace to be considering right now absolutely and just thinking about
a lot of the aspects to that I would do a google search because I know I ran into
a news article about the I Want A was Florida I don't know what that I don't know
what. They made some accommodation but you know the parents are nobody could give
it to them at the school legally so legally they could not be administered the
medical marijuana at the school and that but I think that's rolling in Florida or.
That's Federally they can do that or that mean that's like the state said that the
state says that day because looking at
a lot of the school policies in Kent County the districts
a lot of them don't even reference marijuana at all in their substance use policies
so that's something that they should be considering to but thank you that's really
I think it was like last thank you and this is our last one for the day and then
we're going to close I'm going to have to know my name is Karim scales and my
question is more along the lines of operating a motor vehicle so we hear
a lot of comparisons with the marijuana and alcohol obviously with alcohol there's
a blood alcohol level has there been has not yet been defined as to how that's
measured with marijuana and if not we can we expect. That's an awesome question in
the States the so the states studied it for
a year and came back and said we can't set a number on it and they had
a special commission full of scientists and. Some police officers
and that type of thing and people there would know and they basically said they
came back and said we cannot put
a number on it so there is no number of drug driving obviously has
a point 0 weight there is no number for marijuana which makes it all that much more
scary if you have marijuana in your body and you're driving because there is no per
se amount so at this point in time 00 in your system period and that's
unfortunately what
a lot of prosecutors are looking at it as whether it's for nanograms or 14 anagrams
they know what it can say you cannot put
a scientists on the witness stand who's going to say your employer at this level or
this level and I've seen them have
a case right now with Warner grants. And they're prosecuting the person under the
drunk driving the drug driving a statute for not
a grams. Thank you so much for your question and what I'm going to say because you
guys have so many incredible questions that. My last question to all of you before
we close will be my unapologetic final bang will be how do people stay in touch how
this day involving your organization your movement or connect with you because I'm
sure that we could have conversation about what's legal and how we navigate the
nuance in this new industry all day and I know because I do this all day every day
this is what an entire black and brown kind of
a skilled meeting is how we do this what we do then what we do next so I would like
to start at the end that we're going to work our way down and then we're going to
close because this rant over because it's so good I see something years but I want
to let them say how to stay in touch with them and then we're going to wrap up OK
disability advocates of Kent County we have a Web site that you can access we have
a Facebook page we. Literally think I'm
a technology challenge so. But that would be the way you could access.
Access our website without any problem in from
a contact information's on there. Thank You can go to W.W.W.
See some of the case on where I teach individuals how to build wealth in the green
rush and shrink the wealth at your portfolios crowdfunding and host of different
other things in addition to that you can also check me out. Follow us on all of the
social media platforms. And Samone is what to see so see. And then see
oh and and then last but not least please look at my organization which is on the
chapter president for minorities for medical marijuana which was voted Denver's
2018 best diverse. Marijuana organization so that's
a big one from the cup so definitely check us out we do
a lot of community things but for to see and everybody. Yes please go on this
25th I am having in the scheme hikes we are having
a cannabis and culture where there's
a lot of being in the core door we're inviting everybody to come out the tickets
are only $25.00 they'll be vendors there before we get
a poll it's all kind of vague and different cannabis vendors that will be there
there will be poetry it's almost like Love Jones meets Howard so yeah come on now
with me right now it's live music D.J.
And the deejays only play eighty's and ninety's and I'm going to be
a good time to have barbecue in college. We don't have sliders in the inside and
everybody does hang out is from 6 to 12 on Sunday August 25th in Muskegon hikes and
it's my way of welcoming the cannabis industry to the. Light brown and white people
everybody thank you so much so know best way to in the read up more information and
tips. About the medical facilities. Recreation lack of
probably be at my website W.W.W.
Bruce Allen
a block dot com B R U C A L A N B L O C K dot com
I would be the best way of staying in touch and or
a call me and come see me. I would say Grand Rapids I'm out of
slash marijuana is the best way or if you go to ground opposite my gov search box
of top right plug in any word for marijuana you want to look at you there is can I
just type team lead team with
a patent on you and you know shoot me or and I mean mail if you have questions
mostly about the US the local process if you're if you especially are interested in
open business as far as as far as this kind of question about what's legal I just
want to mention that we have some more educational sessions that are sort of more
smaller community of
a sessions tomorrow tomorrow all week next next week
but check out and when we have that we have Baxter Garfield Park Jim Hispanic
Center maybe others steeple town and one of the cedar spring so that's those are
happening next week in the police but spread the word about that so we can get
a lot of community input but just keep in mind Grant is
a Modoc of his life marijuana and that's
a good touch with me here in Alabama. Thank you guys and my name is an obvious
again I'm going to post in under the live stream thread for the city growing up
it's not in all the places I share this too just on the original 6 to 10 of my
favorite groups to follow the legal groups the professional networks online where
you can watch thousands of people all over the state of Michigan from the U.P.
To the north of the Ann Arbor folks talking about where they are in the challenges
and what's going on in marijuana and then also the black or brown cannabis guild
has
a Facebook group that anybody can join we will probably go ahead I'm going to say
because I already got some text about it we will probably carpool over to the
Muskegon like Love Jones how did you guys can probably join us and my website.
Dot com If you have any questions about my firm in the work we do in engagement and
the kind of US companies that we've been working with but thank you guys so much
for having this I want to give it up for all of you for being here today and for
and HELOC again for putting this on thank you so much thank you.
Thank you everybody if you haven't already filled out your post survey cards please
do post panel survey please do and then give it to us at the registration table or
just like handed to me. Thank you so much for coming hope you keep mingling and
truly excited thank you. Yes of course and.